Last month, I wrote positively about Scalable Capital, but November has turned me from a Scalable Capital promoter into a detractor, to use NPS jargon.
What happened? First of all, Scalable Capital didn’t manage to change my phone number in an entire month. I was asked to fill out a form, sign it on paper (digital signatures don’t count), and then scan it along with my ID and send it back via email. After a little over a week, I followed up to ask what had become of it. Oh, the colleague forgot to tell me that I also needed to do a PostIdent process. Why? No idea, but I did it anyway. And then, nothing happened again. I followed up, and they said, “Yes, yes, the colleagues will get in touch with you in the coming days.” Now it’s the end of November, and still nothing has happened. It’s great when they annoy you for 2FA, but then prevent it from happening.
Then I had a few questions regarding loss offsetting. I told the really nice support team at Scalable Capital, and they forwarded it. What I got back was a standard reply. I wrote back, saying that it wasn’t helpful, and then received a very cheeky response. So, I wrote again, this time with documents to confirm my point. Since then, nothing has happened, not even after following up. Now, you might think everything is fine with the taxes. Growney also assured me multiple times until I was able to prove to them that their partner bank had issued an incorrect tax certificate. Then, a new one came out quickly.
And then I had another question at Scalable Capital about why I couldn’t withdraw my cash. Again, I received a standard response, but it wasn’t helpful. What was the issue? Let’s say I have €1,000 in cash in my account and €10,000 in stocks. I sell €5,000 worth of stocks and buy new stocks with exactly those €5,000, so I haven’t touched the original €1,000. But Scalable Capital wouldn’t let me withdraw those €1,000, and they couldn’t explain why. After a few days, I was finally able to withdraw it. Scalable Capital had just been stalling.
Why did I want to withdraw the cash? Because Trade Republic offers 4% instead of the 2.6% that Scalable Capital only offers to Prime Broker customers for nearly €5 a month. By the way, if you click on this link to open an account with Trade Republic, I get a small bonus :)). I’m actually considering whether I should just cancel everything with Scalable Capital. I still think they have the nicest interface, the new features are cool, the support is really nice when you reach them, but they’re not helpful. Probably the support at Trade Republic isn’t any better, so I’m thinking about moving my portfolio to ING. In any case, I’ve canceled my Prime Broker subscription with Scalable Capital.
And then there’s Estateguru, who sent out a very funny update on the German projects today:
Currently, 5% of the German portfolio is on track.
…
35% of the portfolio consists of the most problematic borrowers, who have not accepted their default setting (without which no legal action can be taken). These borrowers avoid contact or raise unfounded objections to the enforcement. We have highly competent legal and collection partners who will not stop working until all collection opportunities are exhausted. However, for this part of the portfolio, we expect it will take at least 2 years.
Earlier in the email:
Originally, the plan was to sell the entire German portfolio of non-performing loans in one transaction, but this has not proven possible so far. The market shows signs of low liquidity, and the expected discounts are high, as the collection process is heavily dependent on the underlying property value, which is under pressure following a significant downturn in the German real estate market.
It then follows with a very good analysis of the German real estate market, which illustrates the tricky situation. It’s all useless, the money isn’t lost, but it will take time to recover from this blow. As I wrote two months ago, I really messed up my decision to invest more money in German projects because they were considered so safe. There was a bit of greed involved too. I’ve learned that lesson now.